Our
community has been excited at various times during a few weeks past, by
attempts to recapture fugitives in the place. These efforts have been made, as
we understand, by men from Kentucky aided at one time by a deputy U. S. Marshal
who resides here, and at another by a deputy U.S. Marshal from Columbus. It is not necessary to say that these
efforts have stirred up intense feeling on the part of our citizens, and that
none have been found so lost to humanity as to indicate openly and sympathy
with the man-hunters. The only
fugitive law for which the people of Oberlin have any respect, is that recorded
in the fifth book of Moses: “Thou
shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master
unto thee; he shall dwell with thee even among you, in that place which he
shall chose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him.” - Deut. xxiii: 15, 16.

In these
undertakings there was no approach to success until stratagem and treachery
were resorted to. On Monday, Sept.
13, a young man residing two or three miles from town was hired to decoy a
colored man from the village, upon the pretence of employing him in labor. As they were riding o the way to the
work, as the colored man supposed, about two miles from the village he was
seized by three men – one an official from Columbus, the others
Kentuckians – and hustled into a carriage. They drove at once to Wadsworth’s Hotel in Wellington. A resident of Oberlin met them on the
way and reported in town his suspicions that an arrest had been made. Companies of men, students and
citizens, armed and unarmed, at once followed in pursuit and were joined on the
way by others. At Wellington they
found the hotel already surrounded by crowds of people, while the man-hunters
with their victim had taken refuge in the garret and had barricaded the
passages. The gathering increased
hourly and the excitement grew more intense, until at last the doors themselves
gave way before the moral force that was brought to bear upon them, and the
poor fugitive walked forth to the crowd who bore him off in triumph. Not a shot was fired, nor a blow
struck, nor a bolt broken. It was
not possible to resist the demand for the release in the name of the Higher
Fugitive Law, backed by such an executive
force.

It is not our
purpose to apologize for what some may consider disorder and interference with
the execution of the laws of the land. We admit most freely that there are evils connected with all such
popular uprisings in support of justice in opposition to the forms of law, but
there are also evils in succumbing to mischief framed by law because “on the
side of the oppressor there is power.” Let the casuist decide which is the greater
evil – or, if he fail, we refer the question to him who has felt the iron
enter his own soul.

The movement was
doubtless very imprudent in many points
of view, but there are higher virtues than that low prudence which men are wont
to honor.

“If thou forbear
to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be
slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the
heart consider it? And he that keepeth thy soul, doth he not know it? And
shlall he not render to every man according to his works? – Proverbs
xxiv: 11,18.